tkdguy

I'm working on a setting right now, fairly hard but with a few rubbery elements. Time is 2252, and Earth is anything but a united world. Many of the nations in existence at the beginning of the 21st century still do, but the majority are parts of "Conglomerate States" or Congloms, specifically:
 
North American Union
Third African Union
European Entente
Oceania
Argentine-Chile Pact
Brazilian Alliance
Unification of Medina
Indian and South Asian Hegemony
 
plus a number of independents, including Russia and China. Humanity has expanded out and colonised most of Sol system, and one of the three slowboat colonisation arks has reached the inhabitable world around Alpha Centauri (Libertas). However, 50 years ago a combination of Medinan and Indian research teams successfully broke the light barrier, enabling humanity to reach the stars...slowly. The FTL drive allows only a speed of roughly 1LY per day.
I'm looking to create a situation more analogous to the tall ships era, when local commanders and local situation produced local solutions, without necessarily much input from the high command.

Shuma-Gorath's spawning grounds discovered (proof at 2:56):
 

Hey Brian.
 
Sympathies mate. Glad to see you've got such a positive attitude, it makes a huge difference.
 
If you don't mind, I'd like to share a similar story, with a very positive outcome. My dad was diagnosed with a type of leukemia last year. Like you, his cancer is not curable but is treatable. The chemo is working just fine and, because it's a low dose, isn't impacting on his lifestyle at all. Modern medicine is great.

I created a character once who was a college football player trying to get an edge, and took an experimental HGH to build up his body. Something went wrong and he ended out with a super-high metabolism. He was a brick/speedster with a whole series of martial art “football” maneuvers. 
 
I sort of of feel like I may have been foreshadowing . . .

Robinson Caruso
 
The adventures of a shipwrecked opera singer

Family Guy of Gisbourne

Re: Jokes
 
A golfer playing in Ireland hooked his drive into the woods. Looking for his ball, he found a little Leprechaun flat on his back, a big bump on his head and the golfer's ball beside him.
 
Horrified, the golfer got his water bottle from the cart and poured it over the little guy, reviving him.
 
'Arrgh! What happened?' the Leprechaun asked.
 
'I'm afraid I hit you with my golf ball,' the golfer says.
 
'Oh, I see. Well, ye got me fair and square. Ye get three wishes, so whaddya want?'
 
'Thank God, you're all right!' the golfer answers in relief. 'I don't want anything, I'm just glad you're OK, and I apologize.'
 
And the golfer walks off.
 
'What a nice guy,' the Leprechaun says to himself.'I have to do something for him. I'll give him the three things I would want... a great golf game, all the money he ever needs, and a fantastic sex life.'
 
A year goes by and the golfer is back. On the same hole, he again hits a bad drive into the woods and the Leprechaun is there waiting for him.
 
'Twas me that made ye hit the ball here,' the little guy says. 'I just want to ask ye, how's yer golf game?'
 
'My game is fantastic!' the golfer answers. I'm an internationally famous golfer now.' He adds, 'By the way, it's good to see you're all right.'
 
'Oh, I'm fine now, thank ye. I did that fer yer golf game, you know. And tell me, how's yer money situation?'
 
'Why, it's just wonderful!' the golfer states. 'When I need cash, I just reach in my pocket and pull out $100 bills I didn't even know were there!'
 
'I did that fer ye also.' And tell me, how's yer sex life?'
 
The golfer blushes, turns his head away in embarrassment, and says shyly, 'It's OK.'
 
C'mon, c'mon now,' urged the Leprechaun, 'I'm wanting to know if I did a good job. How many times a week?'
 
Blushing even more, the golfer looks around then whispers, 'Once, sometimes twice a week.'
 
'What??' responds the Leprechaun in shock. 'That's all? Only once or twice a week?'
 
'Well,' says the golfer, 'I figure that's not bad for a Catholic priest in a small parish.'

Not a link, but I can't see a better place for it.
 
The Exoplanet Handbook (2nd edition) by Michael Perryman from Cambridge U Press, (c) 2018, ISBN 978-1-108-41977-2.  Just over 950 pages of tiny print making a monumental, massive heavy-duty technical reference book at the apex of that genre's glory.  I think around $100?  $120? from the publisher (I bought mine at a steep discount at a scientific meeting early this month).  The last 185 pages are references.  The last 62 before that are a list of exoplanet systems, sorted by detection type, with comments that range from five words of reference to more than half a page.  Though like any print book it will go out of date in terms of the data in it, it is graduate-level in discussions of detection techniques (chapters 2 through 7), host stars, brown dwarfs and free-floating planets, formation theory and observations, interior and atmosphere modeling, and our Solar System through the same considerations.  Then two short appendices before the exoplanet list already mentioned.
 
For the professionals and their libraries; for that price it's worth trying to wheedle your library into getting a copy.  It'll be a difficult read, but hard-core science (and sci-fi) geeks will have lots of nuggets they can glean from this.

Sympathies, Brian. Hang in there.

Is that in the HERO store?  Because the one I picked up elsewhere is a book scan.  A good one, but a book scan nonetheless.
 
 
Brian: you've alread got a leg-up on attitude.  Anyone that likes Mr. T has the right attitude already.
 
 

I curse a lot when I'm writing, does that count?

that soumds like a nightmare all right

How to draw an X?  Well first off, I don't have very good drawing abilities, especially portraiture. The best I can do is stick figures and smiley faces. And secondly, I'm afraid if I drew an X, she might show up.  There's a reason she's an X, you know.

Holy Borg Cube, Batman! for example?
 
EDIT: Or something like

Nah...
 

 

Yeah, but I didn't have a telescope back then.

Transformers:
 
Predaking Kong
 
 

Thundercat Ballou

Rum and Red Bull!  Plastered and wired at the same time!!

Looks like the Moon got hit During teh Lunar Eclypse:
 

Sorry to hear about that, Pariah. Condolences to friends and family.

It is raining in the San Francisco Bay Area, so I get to miss out on another eclipse yet again.